Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Significance of the Brain in constructing an Essay

CParra's picture

 

 

Carolina Parra

December 12, 2010

Significance of the Brain in constructing an Essay

          As a teenager I strived to be as unique as possible, trying to be outside of the social norm, but I failed miserably because everyone had that same thought in mind. Everything that comes out of my brain is not original; all thoughts have been impacted by society and culture, but the way thoughts are processed is one of a kind.

          When I make decisions, think, or write essays all the thoughts that come out are not created solely by me. When I write a paper I jot down thoughts that I have heard before or thoughts that I want to try to argue. The thing about thoughts is that they are never unique to one person. For example, my thoughts on religion are there only because my culture put a lot of emphasis on religion. I am Catholic because my mom was Catholic, which her mom was Catholic and in my grandmothers culture Catholicism was what the official religion was. With that in mind my though process is affected by my religion and the reason I have those thoughts in the first place is because that is what my culture imposes on us.

          One may ask themselves there are always the stragglers who do not believe in the norm, the reason for this belief is because they have been exposed to new cultures. They are able to have choices and decide to pick another way of living. The thing about these stragglers is that there are many and they influence each other. Therein lays the impact. All ideas are from someone else.

          Let’s think back to philosophical ideas there is always an impact from someone else. Rousseau, Locke, and Hobbes all had ideas from someone else mostly Plato and Aristotle but then there was society impacting these famous philosophers and even other philosophers. What does this have to do with stories and how the brain constructs, everything actually. Our brain makes stories only according to what we know. Our brain does not have the ability to create new stories, at its core stories are just the brain recycling ideas.

          The reason there is no boredom is because just like decent with modification ideas are modified as the different brains recreate them. This then shows that all ideas are understood in different ways. When I write a paper there are so many things coming into play. I am influenced by my culture when the society is influencing the culture. Once that influence has been done my brain understands ideas in a certain way. Even though everyone does have a different perception the ideas are still same.

          That is why the world is still interesting, because there is influence on everyone. There is a certain amount of ideas but everyone can change the meaning of the idea. All we have to do is look into the idea of God. There are so many religions out there Catholicism, Buddhism, Muslim, etc. in most of these religions there is one superior being but just different names, different attributes and different stories. Again it is the same idea but analyzed through a different lens. A Mexican, American, Chinese, and all the different nationalities have different glasses and so each one see’s a certain idea in a certain way. Those are cultures and then there is a family in each culture who see that idea in a certain way then it comes down to the individual wearing a different set of glasses.

          It is interesting how everything is connected. The brain constructs stories to fit your life. The brain is so powerful as to take an object and change it to fit a person’s need. If I were from another culture my stories are completely different. To bring it back to me, my essays are written in informal speech most of the time why because in my family education is very limited so my essays are simple and to the point. There is also the problem with ranting. I begin to rant in essays because of how I grew up. My brain is able to apply my culture to everything.

          Even thought there is a lot of variation in ideas there are only a certain number of ideas in the world. Those ideas are just seen through different glasses. The brain allows for this to occur. It might make many feel angry at the thought of there being no uniqueness, but there is because even though one’s ideas are not rare the way one uses them is unique. The brain can see things in so many ways because of all that influence. If new ideas came out every day there would be no order, but because all brains are trying to decipher the same ideas it brings a certain unity to the world. No one’s thoughts are unique in the world, but the way the brain views these thought has a big variation.

 

AttachmentSize
Significance of the Brain in constructing an Essay.doc29.5 KB